Black walnuts

Seriously, I hated walnut time….

Fond memories of long gone days.

They been dropping here awhile.

LEMproducts sells a wonderful nut cracker that will crack black walnuts with ease. Much better then Carol bouncing shells all over the garage with the dumb hammer.

An interesting discovery to pass along...I did a bunch of walnuts last year, after husking them, I washed them in buckets with a garden hose. About 10 minutes later, there were big earthworms coming up out of the ground anywhere the stained water was dumped. Aparently something in the walnut husks that worked like the old soapy water trick does, forcing them to the surface.

It was the acids in the wash.

Whughett said:

I can recall in our rural community with its two room school house kids who’s parents farm had walnut trees would come to school with hands stained an iodine color from handling walnut hills. LOL.

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In southern indiana, i'd squirrel hunt by listening for the telltale cutting sound of them hulling a walnut. A lot of the ones i killed would have faces and arms dyed black from shelling so many green ones.

Used to bring back a bucket each year to keep in the garage, and any time id spot a squirrel across the street, id whistle and throw a walnut at them. It didnt take them any time at all to figure out what the whistle meant. I had a few that would poke their head in the back door any time i was in the garage...and one summer, when practicing with my bow, months after having ran out of nuts, i had one that would follow me around the yard every evening as i retrieved arrows...pretty good memory if you ask me..

Ive heard also that a lot of trappers used to dye their traps with them. And i used to rub them on my clothes for cover scent during bow season. They have a very...strong...odor, far from unpleasant...but very strong.

Have also heard of people dying cloth and staining wood with them...and i know of one person who attempted to dye a shagbark hickory selfbow with pokeberries and walnuts....im the one who cut the stave..

Speaking of eating walnuts and hickory nuts though. There was a type of stone found by arrowhead hunters with a dimple on one side, called a nutting stone. The indians wore the holes into them from cracking hickory and walnuts. The stones are so common that arrowhead hunters didnt even bother picking them up...and take one walk into the riverbottoms down there, and you wont even wonder why...nothing but hickory trees dotted with walnut groves. Those nut crops were an indian food staple out there before frontier settlement disrupted things.

At one time i actually had a pile of nutting stones in my yard. Even cracked hickory nuts on a few of them myself.

.36Rooster said:

A lot of the ones i killed would have faces and arms dyed black from shelling so many green ones.

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Spence

That too squirrel picture looks like me when I overdose on chocolate and pass out…

Top, that is …

I’ve never cooked with mine, but I love using the, to dye fabric for winter projects. I buy a few yards of line or cotton duck, dye it and use it in the shop all winter

My brother inlaw and I went out digging some ginseng today and walnuts were falling. I picked some up to keep and he said there are two different kinds around here. He said some have a dark nut and some have a much lighter colored nut. I cracked a couple and he said they were the darker ones and that they were good but if I could find a tree with the lighter colored ones they would be better. He just stopped by and brought some from his tree and when I cracked one open it was a lot lighter color nut inside. You guys ever see this they looked identical on the outside.

I never noticed Bass, I'll have to pay more attention. I do have butternuts around here but they are oval shaped, and some thing is killing them off, our Conservation Dept. is asking anyone with a tree that looks healthy to contact them, mine are dying a slow ugly death, sad.
Robby

Had fewer waste from flying hulls cracking them with work bench vise.

I live in a residential neighborhood and about 6 years ago took a certain road that ran next to an expressway. Between the expressway and the road I was on there was a creek and trees. One day I saw all the walnuts laying in the road and picked up a mess of them. I knew they were walnuts from my time in Missouri every summer growing up. Didn't know how to handle them so they didn't get used. After reading this good thread I rode my sidecar rig over there and they have started dropping. Location is Seaford, Long Island, shitty NY. Sorry about the picture quality as I had to snap it quick while on the bike.

I have been picking them up and hulling them out to dry. They should be ready to crack and pick about the time I heal up from surgery.

Black walnut pie. Just like pecan pie but with black walnuts. Kind of a big deal where I came from.

bubba.50 said:

Yep. We gathered them by the sack full & put them in the ruts in the dirt/gravel drive. Then after a few days we gathered them back up to crack for winter baking.

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Thanks for reviving my young memories of my granddaddy "Pop Burns". I would go to his farm in late fall with my coaster wagon to help him pick up walnuts and distribute them in the ruts in his driveway.